


Of Princesses And Witches

by tielan



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:13:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25505017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: Encounters with Lancre witches
Comments: 11
Kudos: 50
Collections: Every Woman 2020





	Of Princesses And Witches

**Author's Note:**

  * For [facethestrange](https://archiveofourown.org/users/facethestrange/gifts).



Princess Esmerelda Margaret Note Spelling of Lancre does not suffer anyone to call her 'Spelly'.

The kids tried when she was young, but she steadfastly refused to answer to the name, and after one or two of them fell over in puddles and had their hair stuck full of twigs, they mostly had the sense to give up. 

One of the boys tried to call her 'Belly' for a while. Greggy Gomer's family were from Fourecks and they tried to give everything a nickname. Esme listened to his smug little explanation of how he decided to call her 'Belly' as the other kids watched with wide eyes, and then she fought him. Sort of. 

"Esme, I heard from Hardy Turner that you've been beating up the new boy!"

Esme looked up from her dinner. "No, mama. I've been showing him how things work around here."

Her mother stares rather hard at her. "And how do things work around here, Esme?"

"He doesn't call me names and I don't beat him up."

Verence, King of Lancre, chokes on a bit of his dinner and has to be thumped on the back by Shawn Ogg.

Esme's parents aren't pleased with her actions, but they're willing to give Esme some leeway after Greggy's dad, "Leggy", dismisses it when Magrat tries to bring it up.

"Does the kid good to be reminded he doesn't rule the roost, ya know? He's too used to getting his own way at home. Shame the others didn't take, but what can you do?"

Nanny Ogg chuckles about it at the market.

"It's the way of kids," she says when Esme's mother brings it up. "There's going to be some scrapping. And it's not all bad. Esme's no bully; she don't fight when she doesn't have to. She doesn't even boss the other kids around."

"But they all seem to follow her!"

"Stands to reason. She's the princess - bred to it, too!" Nanny cackles. "Don't borrow trouble, Magrat. Wait ten years - won't just be young Greggy trying her patience then!"

* * *

As Esme grows up and is allowed a bit of freedom, she goes foraging with the other Lancre children through the woods. Some of it's simple and fun - picking meadow flowers while scrambling over rock and tree, collecting wild herbs for the new cook in the castle kitchen to experiment with, or hunting for lost livestock who've escaped their pens.

Esme is with her brother Verence Adrian the Third (more colloquially known as 'Rennie') on the day that Sensible the goat decides to take a significant wander out of the castle, down the causeway to the village, and up into the hills. She seizes the opportunity to go after him because she's also trying to avoid the new governess.

They hike through the hills for most of the day, having told Kennel Avery where they were going on their way out of town. The choice of Kennel as messenger was deliberate; he wouldn't think to ask a question until they were out of sight. Of course, the danger was also that he wouldn't remember to pass the message on. But that was secondary to the importance of avoiding Senorita Teresa Marielle Alphonse Maquitas, who had a pincer grip when it came to keeping Esme from going out to the village to play with her friends.

Esme doesn't realise how far they've gone until they reach the Dancers.

She's not supposed to come here. Certainly not with Rennie, who starts across the green grass towards the circle until she drags him back. "No! We can't go in there!"

"You can't tell me what I can do!" Her brother is in one of his contrary fits, where he won't do what you ask him, even if you ask him nicely.

Granny says he could do with a good swat on his bottie. Nanny agrees but sighs that Esme's parents never would. And Esme gets into trouble when she tries to rein her brother in. Even though he's smaller than her, he hits harder, and sometimes he bites.

She's trying to avoid being bitten now.

Rennie is putting up a fight, too intent on defying the only person around with authority over him to think about why his sister doesn't want him to go into the Dancers. Not that Esme exactly _knows_ what's wrong about the Dancers, just that...it's not a good idea to go in there. It's...it's the feeling about it. Like there's someone watching from just inside. Like there's someone laughing as she loses ground to her brother's determined kicking and fighting and scratching and punching. And when they're inside the Dancers--

"What's all this about then?"

Granny's voice cuts through the clearing like a steam engine cutting across the Sto Plains.

Rennie sags. Esme takes the moment to get an even stronger grip on him. Her brother is _slippery_ when he chooses.

"I wanted to see the Dancers!" Rennie whines.

"We were looking for Simplicity the goat," Esme tells Granny without relinquishing Rennie's collar. "And we didn't realise how far we'd come..."

Granny looks at Rennie. She looks at the Dancers and her face hardens. Then she looks back at Esme. "Simplicity's with my herd, over by my place. You'd best come back to my house and get her." She holds out one thin hand, palm up. There's no question of Rennie refusing it, and when she adds "I think I still have some Weatherwax apple pie - cooked by Mrs Chipson over by Slice just yesterday," there's _really_ no question of Rennie refusing. Esme's brother is all stomach.

Still, Esme gives the clearing with the Dancers one last look, sure that she can feel the prickle of an eye upon her. Then Granny calls her name, a peremptory, "Esme!"

Esme goes with her godmother.

* * *

The cottage up in the hills is one of Esme's favourite places to escape.

It's the haphazard neatness of the house, so different to the prim weight of the castle. The warm, hushed air that's only broken by the breeze down off the mountains, without the constant churn of Lancre river far below. It's the soft buzz of the bees in the garden where Esme is cutting herbs, and the way the head goat of the herd leans over the fence and tries to eat the jumper her mother knitted for her tenth birthday, and then butts her into the comfrey patch.

Esme sprawls her length in the scratchy leaves, grumbling as the damp seeps in through her skirt and stockings, and as her hand lands in a patch of nettles, stinging her skin.

"Ow," she complains of the nanny goat. "And I milked you this morning, too!"

The goat snaps its teeth around a nearby stalk of Ginny Come Nether and chews with the blank stare of a creature who thinks nothing of reciprocity, only of things to eat. Esme rolls to her knees and dusts off her skirt of coarse linen, old and patched. Her parents sighed as she walked out the castle door this morning, but at least they didn't say anything.

"Is Miss Priscilla giving you trouble, your highness?"

Geoffrey Swivel, Lancre witch-in-training, has just come around the side of the house with his arms full of chopped wood, which he deposits in the woodpile.

"No more than usual, your lordship."

He uses her title in awkward honesty. She uses his in cheerful teasing. And maybe a little bit of frustration. When Granny died, Esme's secret wish that the cottage might come to her had been disappointed, first in Tiffany being assigned to Granny's cottage, and then Tiffany handing it on to Geoffrey.

Never mind that it was a witch's cottage, and Esme is only a princess. Oh, she has some craft ability, but there was none of the push to develop it - none of the isolation that Granny or Geoffrey or Agnes Nitt felt, none of the natural outflow of power that came to Nanny or to Mama, or the spark of Tiffany's venture into fairyland to retrieve her brother. She's more like Letitia, Baroness of the Chalk, born with a casual gift rather than a calling.

As her father said last time the question of Esme’s magic came up, "That’s not a terrible thing, my dear."

Esme's maybe starting to come to believe it.

Maybe it shows, too, because as she turns to take the herbs into the cottage for sorting and drying, Geoffrey takes a step towards her.

"Thank you for coming up here to help." The words come out in a rush, like the river when the ice melts in spring and pushes its way down the mountain. "I know you wanted the cottage for your own."

Esme looks around at the house and the woods. She loves it, yes; it's part of her childhood, her godmother, her heritage.

But, "It wasn't for me," is all she says.


End file.
